The Swamp Killers

by Sarah M. Chen

  Beau turned to face her, cupped her chin in his hand, and played to her emotions the way he’d done since the moment he’d learned her secret. “She didn’t destroy you. You’re stronger than she’ll ever be.”

  Zara pulled back, scowling. But she sighed and he knew he had her. “Fine. I’ll truss up Melody. You get rid of Timmy—but you know I’m going to need the credit.”

  Beau nodded, expecting that demand. And he didn’t give a damn. Zara’s triumph was his, too. Whatever power she seized, he’d be right alongside her.

  “Let’s hurry up and get this finished. Then let’s get the hell out of this place.”

  She never should have let Beau go after Timmy alone. Not because Beau couldn’t handle the asshole—although her stomach had been rioting with nerves since he’d stepped into the street to follow Timmy. But she’d planned that kill for herself.

  She’d never wanted to kill anyone—except for Melody—which was why she’d folded when Beau pushed. But Melody loved Timmy. Loved him with the kind of first-love adoration you never really got over. So, if Zara couldn’t hurt Melody directly, this was the next best thing. Being able to see Melody every day, see Melody’s pain and know she’d caused it. And once this was over, there was nothing Melody would be able to do about it.

  Even thinking about that future made the tightness that was always lodged in Zara’s chest loosen a bit. Made five years of hatred and self-loathing and shame lessen just slightly.

  Zara yanked open the door to a motel that looked like it was a small step above pay-by-the-hour. She expected to be blasted with stale air conditioning; instead, it was barely cooler than outside. But no one would think to look for her here. And her father wouldn’t set foot in this place.

  As she was about to slip inside, a reflection from outside on the street stared back at her in the glass door. A woman with long dark hair and loosely swaying hips heading away from her.

  Zara froze, the knot in her chest yanked tight again, her breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t seen her cousin in almost six months, but that overly confident, overly sexualized walk hidden beneath schoolgirl clothing was instantly familiar. Melody.

  Zara stepped backward, pivoting to follow. The thick Florida air clogged her lungs as she took too-rapid, asthmatic-feeling breaths. Her hands fisted, nails digging into her palms, making tears prick her eyes.

  In an instant, the fear was back, mixed with hatred so intense it made her shake. She could kill Melody right now, slip up behind her and choke the air from her lungs. Just squeeze and squeeze while Melody’s arms flailed and her eyes bugged out. Feel the very life leave her. Beau was tracking Timmy; there was no one to save the bitch.

  Black dots skirted across her vision and Zara realized she’d stopped breathing. She took a long, shaky drag of air into her lungs, then blew it out, trying to expel the rage with it. She’d felt this desperate craving for violent revenge before, five years ago when Melody’s father died and Zara expected what everyone else did: that Sheldon Duplass would become the new head of the empire.

  Back then, she’d given in to the rage. Given in to the need to make Melody suffer the way she had. But the price had been too high. Today, she had a new plan.

  So, instead of slinking up behind Melody and pressing her fingertips into the bitch’s windpipe, Zara forced them to loosen out of fists. The welts she’d made on her palms stung, keeping her grounded as she stepped lightly, softly. Melody was heading away from the main street, onto a far less populated side street leading out of town. A good place to grab her, but harder to drag her off somewhere and stash her until Beau returned.

  Ahead of her, Melody walked with swinging arms, relaxed and carefree after betraying her mother, despite the hitmen loitering everywhere. Sure, they had strict instructions not to touch Melody, but anyone who took a job as a contract killer probably didn’t like to play by the rules.

  Then again, Melody had grown up with everyone catering to her whims. When her father had been alive, he’d doted on her, made sure all of his henchmen knew to get her anything she wanted. Back then, Melody had perfected the role of aloof princess. Nose in the air and a serene smile on her face while she made everyone close to her prove their loyalty. Sometimes, their role was to bring her back something she wanted; often, it was to hurt someone on her behalf. And her favorite target was Zara.

  Sure, Melody was four years younger, but as the daughter of a kingpin, she held all the power. And for most of her childhood, Zara had the bruises to prove it.

  Until the day Melody’s father died. When Zara heard the news, she’d had a brief moment of grief for the uncle who’d genuinely had no idea what his daughter was capable of doing. Then, she’d realized: it was her father who’d hold the power now. And by proxy, Zara would be in charge.

  She hadn’t relied on anyone begging to prove their newfound loyalty to her. She’d done it herself, careful to avoid Melody’s face the way Melody had taught her goons. For years, Zara had kept her pain hidden, knowing her father would start a war over it if he knew. But Melody’s father had controlled all the muscle. Zara’s father would lose, probably die over it. Zara loved her father. And she’d been banking that Melody loved her mother, too.

  Melody had deserved that beating. And Zara hadn’t held back, putting years of pent-up rage into her punches. She longed to do it again now, but knew she had to wait. Had to play the long game, pray that she was making the right choice.

  Zara stepped off the sidewalk, tracking Melody at a farther distance now as the idiot headed toward a rough-looking bar on the outskirts of town. Could she be meeting Timmy here? Was Beau still on his trail?

  But instead of going into the bar—which actually looked like it had bullet holes through the walls and windows—Melody darted around a corner, making Zara falter. Had Melody spotted her? Had Zara been lured here for a repeat of the punishment she’d faced all those years ago, when it became clear that her father wasn’t taking his rightful place in the family, but Olivia was stealing the power?

  Zara bent over, resting her hands on her knees, suddenly out of air. Memories kicked up, memories she’d tried like hell to repress over the years. Rough hands on her shoulders in the middle of the night, waking her from sleep, throwing her to the floor. Someone else yanking her arms over her head, smashing his knees on her palms, holding her there. His hand over her mouth and nose, until she couldn’t breathe, until she was in danger of passing out.

  But she didn’t. She was awake for all of it, the fists to her stomach and chest, the foul breath in her face, the voice whispering in her ear “this is for Melody” right before he forced his way inside of her. No one needed to cover her screams when the second one took his turn—she learned later one of the hits had broken a rib and the rape had shoved the splintered edge into her lung. She couldn’t breathe. Forget screaming.

  She’d gone to a doctor in another state, paid off by Melody to keep quiet. Melody hadn’t needed to tell Zara to do the same. This was no different from her childhood—her father had already ceded his power. If she spoke up, he’d die. Probably, so would she. In all the years since, she hadn’t told anyone. Until Beau.

  It had come out in a moment of weakness, one night when she’d wanted him to stay with her until morning instead of slipping out of her bed at dawn. A week later, one of the lackeys who’d raped her had disappeared. Zara had begged him not to touch the other. One disappearance could be a fluke, a rival crime family making a play or a stupid mistake by a man in a dangerous profession. Two would lead right to her door. So that guy got to live, to stick by Melody’s side most of the time.

  Remembering what had happened to him a few days ago gave Zara her breath back, helped her push upright. Melody had slipped away under his watch.

  Olivia tossed the lackey into the ocean with a concrete block tied to his feet, still alive.

  And now Zara needed to focus, in case Melody had figured out she was here and had a similar fate planned for her. S
liding up against the side of the wall, Zara slowly stepped closer to the corner. She was about to peer around it when Melody breezed past, her laughter ringing in the air, another woman beside her.

  Only it wasn’t Melody.

  “Shit,” Zara breathed as the woman glanced her way, brown eyes squinting in confusion.

  Or maybe recognition.

  “Isn’t that the woman everyone was looking for?” she whispered to her friend. The two of them glanced back at her even as they picked up their pace, looking nervous now.

  “No way,” the other replied, tucking her arm through her friend’s. “I heard she died out in the swamp.”

  Melody, dead?

  The world spun around her and Zara pressed her hands flat against the sticky wall, trying to regain her equilibrium. Memories flooded her brain: The laughter twinkling in Melody’s eyes as she watched one of her lackeys slap Zara across the face. The hard lines of her jaw when she’d first seen Zara after the attack. The little grin when her father had insisted Zara come home from college for holidays, giving Melody a new chance to wield her power.

  It was all over now. But so was Zara’s chance for revenge.

  She slid down the wall, landing in the dirt with a hard thud.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Beau snapped, yanking Zara to her feet. She swayed a little and he frowned, tucking her against him as he glanced around. Was she hurt? If something had happened to her while he’d left her alone, he might as well leap into the ocean now. He couldn’t swim, so it would be a hell of a way to go, but better than Sheldon hearing about this—if her father was even still alive. “What happened?”

  She shook her head mutely and he glanced around again, looking for a threat. But all he saw was a pair of seagulls arguing over crumbs in a deserted bar parking lot. Thank goodness he’d had the tracker installed on Zara’s phone or he’d never have found her here.

  “Milici gave me the slip,” he admitted, still not sure how the guy had done it. Sure, he’d worked for Olivia for a few years, but his main claim on the family had been his secret relationship with Melody. Beau had known about it for a year, like a lot of the guards. But no one had wanted to squeal to the boss, because there’d always been something in the deadness of Timmy’s eyes that warned he was more dangerous than he looked.

  One minute, Beau had been following Timmy through a graffiti-covered, garbage-strewn alley and the next, he’d emerged on the other side and Timmy was just gone. Bastard must have known Beau was behind him. Which meant he suspected Zara was here. Had he sent someone after Zara while Beau was distracted?

  She was still staring up at him, a dazed, vacant look on her face, but she didn’t seem hurt. Beau shook her hard, even as a voice in the back of his mind told him to be gentle, that he was going to have to break the news about her father to her.

  “I think Melody is dead.”

  “What?” Her words made no sense and Beau shook his head. “No, it’s Olivia who’s dead.”

  “That can’t be—”

  “You remember Guillotine?” Jack Guillamine had made his name as a hitman using a garrote so sharp he nearly took off the heads of his victims, so he’d gotten the fitting nickname. When Zara nodded slowly, Beau said, “I ran into him after I lost Timmy. Guy told me that Melody fled back to Atlanta and killed her mother because Olivia had Timmy murdered.”

  Zara frowned, still looking lost. “But we just saw Timmy.”

  “Yeah, well, it sounds like Melody thought he was dead. My guess is Timmy cut her loose as soon as they got here, then maybe he staged his own death. Wouldn’t have been hard to do, with all the hitmen running around this place.” He’d spotted a handful of them himself, some nursing gunshot wounds and others talking about cutting their losses. Apparently, a whole roomful of them had died in a shootout with the feds.

  She scoffed. “Or the rumors are bullshit.”

  “I hope so,” Beau said, loosening his hold on her arms now that she looked like she was less in danger of falling over. He slid his fingers through hers, not sure how to soften the blow. “Because there’s also a rumor that your dad went to meet a couple of hitters and someone got to him. Possibly Timmy was behind it.”

  She swayed a little, then tipped her chin up. “No. No way.”

  “Zara, I don’t know—”

  “No! He’s not dead.” She pulled her hand free and strode past him. “Now let’s go find Timmy and figure out if Melody’s death is just a rumor, too. Supposedly, she died in the swamp where the money is buried. So, we need to check it out. And then I want to get out of this fucking town.”

  Beau ground his teeth together, holding in the curses he wanted to spew at her. He’d worked his ass off, proving himself for years in the family’s prison transport gig, until Sheldon showed up and offered him a better job: his daughter’s personal bodyguard. Being her lover was just a bonus. But hell if he was going to lose it all now.

  He didn’t know what was going on in this town, but one thing was certain. One way or another, everyone who came to this shithole outside of Jacksonville seemed to end up dead.

  A dread she couldn’t explain filled Zara as the local she and Beau had found in the bait and tackle shop pushed off from shore in a simple, flat-bottomed boat. He gave them a grin, front teeth missing, as he started up the motor. It spat a stream of brackish water out the back of the boat, propelling them down the center of the marsh.

  “Whatever we find out there, I’m owed ten percent,” the guy—he’d introduced himself simply as Ned—told her. He patted the sagging waistband of his pants, where a pistol rode. “Don’t forget now.”

  “We won’t,” Zara promised, glancing at Beau. She knew he’d wanted to disarm the guy the second they got on the boat, but Zara had shaken her head. If Ned could lead them to the million dollars Timmy had stolen, he’d earn his ten percent. And if things went bad, she was confident in Beau’s ability to disarm him fast.

  Or at least she had been, until they’d set off in the water. Now Beau was braced in a wide-legged stance, the muscles on his arms outlined until veins popped out. Sweat slicked his brow and she’d almost asked how he could get seasick in a marsh when she’d realized that wasn’t it at all. He was afraid of falling in. And not because of rumors about the alligators that swarmed boats and were willing to take a bite out of anything that moved, but because he couldn’t swim.

  She clutched his hand, but the gesture was as much for her as it was for him. Right now, staying focused on her plan was the only thing stopping her from thinking too hard about her dad.

  Sheldon Duplass was too big to kill—literally and figuratively. He couldn’t be dead. She refused to believe it.

  “How far is it?” Beau asked tightly, bringing Zara’s attention back where it needed to be—on the man they barely knew, leading them deeper and deeper into the marsh.

  They were surrounded by trees now, with low-hanging branches draped in moss and gigantic roots rising out of the water. Ned cut the motor, started paddling by hand as he replied, “We’re getting close. Like I told you back in the shop, there’s a secret island out here. Not sure how this outsider found it, but he keeps coming back here. I’ve followed him a couple times. He’s looking for something, digging all over the island. I’m guessing it’s that hundred thousand dollars he stole.”

  “Hot damn!” Beau exclaimed, suddenly ducking low in the boat, pulling her down with him. “There he is!”

  Zara followed his gaze, hearing a motor before Timmy sped into view, hands tight on the wheel of a boat that seemed too big for the marsh’s narrow pathways. He never glanced their way as he raced past, kicking up a small wake behind him.

  “Let’s go,” Zara insisted, but Ned just shook his head, keeping the boat steady underneath a low overhang of branches and moss that brushed the top of Zara’s head.

  Water sloshed beside them, rocking the boat, and Zara jerked. “What the hell was that?”

  It was too far
to be from Timmy’s boat.

  “Gator,” Ned replied calmly.

  Zara tensed, seeing the rise of a spiny back as the boat rocked again. “Get us out of here!”

  “We’re fine,” Ned said. “We’re not her natural prey. Unless she’s real hungry or we’re threatening her nest, she’ll leave us be.”

  “What if she’s real hungry?” Beau demanded, grabbing Ned by the back of his shirt and lifting him a few inches in the air.

  Ned’s arms flailed a minute, before going for his gun.

  “Don’t,” Beau warned, his voice a low growl that made Ned freeze.

  “Beau,” Zara snapped, a warning of her own. If he tossed Ned overboard, could they find Timmy’s island? More importantly, could they find their way out of here?

  “See?” Ned whispered, pointing at the water.

  Zara’s gaze followed his finger and she relaxed a little. “It’s gone.”

  “Let’s get us gone, too,” Beau said, setting Ned back down.

  “Not yet,” Ned said.

  Beau leaned menacingly toward Ned and Ned held up a hand. “Listen.”

  Another boat. Zara heard it just before it came into view, slicing quietly through the water, following Timmy.

  “It’s Guillotine,” she whispered. “Guess he realized the rumor about Timmy’s death wasn’t true.”

  “Damn it,” Beau muttered. “If he gets there first, he’s going to steal all the glory.” His hands fisted. “Unless I take him out too.”

  Ned glanced from the new boat to Beau, then muttered something under his breath about upping his percentage. Then he started paddling again, faster now, following Guillotine.

  Soon, the island came into view, bigger than Zara had expected. As Ned pulled underneath another huge draping tree, Zara lifted binoculars she’d bought at the bait and tackle shop to her eyes. Guillotine was anchoring up against the far side of the island. Timmy was on the other end, oblivious as he dug into the ground, surrounded by holes and piles of dirt. Then he tossed the shovel and dropped to his knees, yanking something from the ground.